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Your retirement timeline

Whether your retirement’s a long way off or just around the corner, having a clear idea of how to achieve your aims is important. Our Retirement Timeline is here to help.
See what you can do now and in the future to reach the retirement you want.

John Paul: Research shows that we simply can't relate to our future selves. Brain scans show that most of us use one part of our brains when we think about ourselves and a different part when we think about strangers or about our future self. In other words, our future self is just like a stranger. If we don't know who they are, we're going to struggle to give them money so making provisions for retirement will be hard. If we can't relate to our future selves and our focus is on the here and now, how can we take control of our future? As with other seemingly insurmountable problems, we need to break it down and then take the first step.

How often do you think about planning for the future?

Claire: I'm good at planning for parties.

Connor: I think into the future enough to plan, but not to plan that far ahead. There's part of me that doesn’t think I'll even make it past 50.

Lily: I try to keep myself focused by setting short-term goals.

John Paul: How would you like your retirement to be?

Luke: I want to have one of those huts in Bora-Bora.

Dewayne: I'd like to have 100 billion pounds, sterling.

Connor: In my private mansion with my big garden.

Saran: This picture shows me chilling on the beach.

Claire: Big outdoors, loads of dogs, like a farmhouse kind of thing.

John Paul: What are you doing right now to make this happen?

Lily: I'll get back to you on that one.

Luke: You're not really told how to do it.

Dewayne: Honest, like I don't know. I'm too ... I don't want to say I'm too young, but I haven't thought about that sort of stuff.

John Paul: What are you not doing? What are you afraid of?

Teri: I get quite caught up in the here and now and all the things that I need to get done and it always feels busy that I put off things like that.

Osman: I just know that I can't just spend every penny I have all the time.

Claire: When you reach 30, I think you see that time is moving a lot faster than you anticipated. Yeah, you should start thinking about the future.

Saran: I've been so busy doing, seeing the bigger picture, unfocused. This has allowed me to focus a bit more, which is really good.

John Paul: Do you feel as a result of this conversation, you're more likely to save for the future?

Teri: I should start the sooner, the better really to be honest.

John Paul: Like tomorrow or ... ?

Teri: Yeah, like tomorrow.

Osman: Now I'm starting to think further. I've never thought what I'll do when I retire.

Claire: You just made me realize that I actually do really know what I want to do.

Portia: It's not massive. It's not crazy. It's very doable. It's just step by step.

Saran: My mum says how does a mouse eat an elephant and it's one bite at a time.

John Paul: How does it feel to say that?

Teri: A relief I think because like you said, it's one thing that you can do that makes it more manageable.

Dewayne: I'm not fixated on the journey, but I'm going somewhere and I feel like I need to maintain focus.

John Paul: One thing I've noticed is it makes your knees wiggle about when we talk about money.

Lily: Does it?

John Paul: Thinking about your future may be hard, but planning for it doesn't need to be.

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